Life Ov Pi: I haven't read the book but I thought the movie was quite good. In terms of the performance, the overall acting was quite convincing and had some strong performances, especially older Pi's character moved me a bit with his story-telling and narration. As far as the effects and 3D aspect goes, I honestly found it a bit bland except for the scene with the jellyfish. I suppose I had my expectations pegged really high with all the pre-release hype. But all and all, it's worth every buck spent at the theater. Rating: 8/10

Safety Not Guaranteed: The problem with Aubrey Plaza is that she's incorrigibly like Micheal Cera, a person who plays the same character in every film. Keeping that aside (and the fact that I find her attractive), I thought the movie was a tad quirky and would appeal more to hipsters. To be honest, I didn't have anything else to watch, so I kept this movie on while I tried to go to bed. Unfortunately, it didn't make me sleep. The plot could've been written by a 10 year child for all you know. Rating: 5/10

The real ending to The Mist is as bleak as bleak can be. The last survivors roll off into the mist, finding no end to it, and just follow a faint radio transmission that they think comes from Hartford of something, hundreds of miles away. The end.

Do they starve? Go crazy? Get rescued? Does the mist cover the whole world or what? No idea, no hints, no hope, but they keep going anyway. It's fucking cold.

The movie could have easily done that. If you stop watching the movie 10 minutes before the end, it sort of does. Instead we get oops we're out of gas, might as well snuff it. Die hard survivors that have spent movie-days fighting off horrors with not much more than brooms and Alpo suddenly decide eh, fuck it.

And seconds before the army shows up? As if to say ha ha see you shouldn't have given up? Could there have been a clearer middle finger to the audience? The main hero character was turned into the goat in a 100% contrived way that served no purpose and added nothing. It was like a separate director that was unfamiliar with the script tacked on the ending in post.

Watched Nosferatu. My experience with old ass black and white silent films is pretty limited (in the last 6 years or so I've only seen the Artist, and that doesn't count.) I wasn't expecting it to look so strange. It's not the really crisp black and white of stuff like The Twilight Zone, that's for sure. It's the visual equivalent of raw black metal. I wouldn't say I really enjoyed this, as my ADD was kicking in pretty severely with nothing to latch on to except imagery and the occasional moment of brilliant music (most of it is pretty dull.) But I will mention that the guy who played the vampire actually looked creepy as hell, and when he was actually on screen the movie was enjoyable. What with the unforgettable image of his shadow on the wall, and his strange and awkward gait.

I love these German expressionist horror films from the 10s and 20s. The black and white of it, the silence and the grittiness of the quality makes them just that much more atmospheric and authentic. It feels like hey, this could actually have happened way back then. The world still had unexplored reaches where these supernatural, magical and mystical things might have happened. On Nosferatu specifically, Max Schreck's completely out of this world-look - achieved with just make-up - is just disturbing. The most frightening visage on film though perhaps not as disturbing as the backgrounds of Caligari combined with the sleepwalker's gait. But still, one of my definite favorites, a perfect score.

The real ending to The Mist is as bleak as bleak can be. The last survivors roll off into the mist, finding no end to it, and just follow a faint radio transmission that they think comes from Hartford of something, hundreds of miles away. The end.

Do they starve? Go crazy? Get rescued? Does the mist cover the whole world or what? No idea, no hints, no hope, but they keep going anyway. It's fucking cold.

The movie could have easily done that. If you stop watching the movie 10 minutes before the end, it sort of does. Instead we get oops we're out of gas, might as well snuff it. Die hard survivors that have spent movie-days fighting off horrors with not much more than brooms and Alpo suddenly decide eh, fuck it.

And seconds before the army shows up? As if to say ha ha see you shouldn't have given up? Could there have been a clearer middle finger to the audience? The main hero character was turned into the goat in a 100% contrived way that served no purpose and added nothing. It was like a separate director that was unfamiliar with the script tacked on the ending in post.

Yeah I just don't agree with that. The original ending doesn't conclude anything; the characters are essentially exactly where they were at the beginning, in a semi-safe place but uncertain of the future. It's just kind of lazy, really. And they are die-hard survivors, but remember the main thing that kept the dad going was getting back to his wife and rescuing her. He finds out that she's dead, and starts totally despairing. They run out of gas, and from experience they know that running out into the mist without any kind of protection pretty much guarantees a horrible painful death, or worse. With the dad no longer holding everyone together, they all quickly fall in line with his 'quick way out' plan. I agree it was rather rushed in the movie and they could have sold it better by giving them a little more time, as well as better lines and acting. But in principle there was nothing wrong with it and I'm not at all convinced "they just drive off into the mist" would have been a better ending. In fact I'd have felt very let down; all that tension builds up to nothing.

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MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

But the original one had the cool Lovecraftian slant to it where you get hints of these huge mountainous creatures stomping around in the Mist. And the desolated atmosphere was great...I dunno, been quite a few years since I read that story too.

Just watched Antichrist last night. Very slow paced, which I understand to be typical of Lars von Trier, and very creepy. I almost gave up about halfway through, as I was not interested in another psychological study of depression a la Melancholia, but I'm glad I stuck it out. The movie is very artistically done, and ultimately makes its

point. It is explicit and graphic in parts, and will make you recoil. If you saw Melancholia and found it as mind-numbingly dull as I did, I posit that it is largely due to Kirsten Dunst being a terrible actress, because Antichrist is proof that Lars here knows how to make a movie.

I liked Melancholia more than Antichrist. It's certainly more than a psychological study of depression, and I'm not sure it was intended to be even that. It's one of those films where, while enjoying it at the time I didn't find much significance in it, but later on certain events made me think about parts of it and what it was trying to say became clear. To me that's a sign of a good flick. I didn't get that as much with Antichrist. I don't think I really got the gist of that film.

Also: the fact of Dunst being a crap actress sort of fits in to the ethos of the movie if you think about it.

I'd rather thought the ending to The Mist was done brilliantly. Now that's despair right there. Also, I never really had a problem with any hammy acting, been awhile since I saw it though. The rest of the film, especially technically, was very well done imo.

But the original one had the cool Lovecraftian slant to it where you get hints of these huge mountainous creatures stomping around in the Mist. And the desolated atmosphere was great...I dunno, been quite a few years since I read that story too.

Well, they show huge mountainous creatures stomping around in the mist in the movie too.

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MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

Watched Nosferatu. My experience with old ass black and white silent films is pretty limited (in the last 6 years or so I've only seen the Artist, and that doesn't count.) I wasn't expecting it to look so strange. It's not the really crisp black and white of stuff like The Twilight Zone, that's for sure. It's the visual equivalent of raw black metal. I wouldn't say I really enjoyed this, as my ADD was kicking in pretty severely with nothing to latch on to except imagery and the occasional moment of brilliant music (most of it is pretty dull.) But I will mention that the guy who played the vampire actually looked creepy as hell, and when he was actually on screen the movie was enjoyable. What with the unforgettable image of his shadow on the wall, and his strange and awkward gait.

One of my favourite films of all time... The aptly-named Max Schreck's Nosferatu is one of the few horror characters who genuinely scares me at some deep level (possibly because my mother watched this as a child and I grew up with her telling me how terrifying it is); truly, truly excellent.

Has anyone else seen and loved Shadow of the Vampire, about Murnau's making of the film? Dafoe's take on Schreck is oddly compelling, in my view.

Yep, Shadow of the Vampire was very good. Easily one of the best modern vampire movies, if you ask me. Concerning Max Schreck, apparently he was a pretty strange guy in real life. According to someone he knew him, he basically lived in his own world and spent lots of time 'walking in dark forests'. Black metal before there was black metal!

The remake of The Mist sucked ass, and is basically unintentional comedy. I remember laughing out loud when I saw the bug-monster-creature things with huge bugged out eyes, what the hell? Also, I couldn't believe how heavy-handed the whole religious slant was. Just completely dumb. And yeah, the ending was bad. The whole thing was bad.

Just watched Prometheus for the first time last night. The visuals/production design as well as my general curiosity kept me going (particularly seeing as Alien is one of my favorite films of all time), but in terms of plot it was pretty retarded. A lot of wasted potential there. Far too many plot holes + shit that seemed to be in there purely just as meaningless filler. Lazy writing. Heavy (read: painfully spelled-out) metaphors with no substantial backup, some mediocre acting, a few fucking laughable lines ("...I guess that's part of why I'm a human....and you're a robot..."). Ah, but what could we expect, really? At least it was real pretty...? All the alien artwork/architecture was kickass.

The Man Who Wasn't There: Haven't seen a Coen bros film in a while and damn, have they ever made a bad film? This was pitch perfect for the aesthetic and mood they were going for. Thornton was great in another serious role (first Slingblade and now this. I may have to start respecting him,) saying very little in a deep grumbling voice. Neo noire awesomeness. The twists come very naturally, it's quite a meticulously constructed movie. The black and white looks gorgeous, and there's that dark sense of humour that the Coens can wrench out of even the darkest of premises. There's two scenes in the movie that exhibit their trademark trolling, but mostly it's a more cold and serious meditation on aimlessness in a small town.

Watched Nosferatu. My experience with old ass black and white silent films is pretty limited (in the last 6 years or so I've only seen the Artist, and that doesn't count.) I wasn't expecting it to look so strange. It's not the really crisp black and white of stuff like The Twilight Zone, that's for sure. It's the visual equivalent of raw black metal. I wouldn't say I really enjoyed this, as my ADD was kicking in pretty severely with nothing to latch on to except imagery and the occasional moment of brilliant music (most of it is pretty dull.) But I will mention that the guy who played the vampire actually looked creepy as hell, and when he was actually on screen the movie was enjoyable. What with the unforgettable image of his shadow on the wall, and his strange and awkward gait.

One of my favourite films of all time... The aptly-named Max Schreck's Nosferatu is one of the few horror characters who genuinely scares me at some deep level (possibly because my mother watched this as a child and I grew up with her telling me how terrifying it is); truly, truly excellent.

I actually prefer Klaus Kinski's Nosferatu - obviously he's going for a significantly different slant on the character, but I find him more compelling.

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MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

Just watched Prometheus for the first time last night. The visuals/production design as well as my general curiosity kept me going (particularly seeing as Alien is one of my favorite films of all time), but in terms of plot it was pretty retarded. A lot of wasted potential there. Far too many plot holes + shit that seemed to be in there purely just as meaningless filler. Lazy writing. Heavy (read: painfully spelled-out) metaphors with no substantial backup, some mediocre acting, a few fucking laughable lines ("...I guess that's part of why I'm a human....and you're a robot..."). Ah, but what could we expect, really? At least it was real pretty...? All the alien artwork/architecture was kickass.

Truth.

I really couldn't help but like it still. Probably the best production and effects ever, with a B grade script. Fassbender is great too.

The Dark Knight Rises: Won't go into this much as the film has already been discussed for 30 pages. A lot of things annoyed me about this sequel. The worst of the trilogy. I really liked Bane. Still a flawed Nolan film is decent overall. Batman Begins remains my favourite. 3 out of 5.

Shame: After Hunger i knew this would be amazing. Loved it. Fassbender was pitch perfect and McQueen has a big future in films i hope. Great soundtrack too. 4.5 out of 5.

Yep, Shadow of the Vampire was very good. Easily one of the best modern vampire movies, if you ask me. Concerning Max Schreck, apparently he was a pretty strange guy in real life. According to someone he knew him, he basically lived in his own world and spent lots of time 'walking in dark forests'. Black metal before there was black metal!

Yeah, I'd heard this, too; not sure, of course, how much of it is an urban legend, but rumours abound that he was an odd one.

failsafeman wrote:

I actually prefer Klaus Kinski's Nosferatu - obviously he's going for a significantly different slant on the character, but I find him more compelling.

He's certainly more powerful, I think, purely in terms of what the vampire can do - in a way, Orlok is almost pathetic at times, in this horrifying vermin-like way, whereas Kinski's Dracula seems like a more forceful villain; to me, that actually makes Schreck's character more monstrous - he really gets under my skin and seems even less human. Just my take, though. I do have to say that I prefer the ending of Kinski's version; it's an interesting route that's not often taken by adaptations of the Dracula narrative.

I actually just watched Nosferatu das Phantom der Nacht the other night - with a friend over form Germany, no less. I loved Kinski as Dracula, and just really loved the whole "European" flavour of the film - the scenery, presentation, music, and story just had a thick European quality to them. I really loved the film. I wish i had the Herzog filmography. Only have a handful of his films.

_________________Razorwyre:promo track track from 'Another Dimension' LP"The best speed metal album of the year"

I actually prefer Klaus Kinski's Nosferatu - obviously he's going for a significantly different slant on the character, but I find him more compelling.

He's certainly more powerful, I think, purely in terms of what the vampire can do - in a way, Orlok is almost pathetic at times, in this horrifying vermin-like way, whereas Kinski's Dracula seems like a more forceful villain; to me, that actually makes Schreck's character more monstrous - he really gets under my skin and seems even less human. Just my take, though. I do have to say that I prefer the ending of Kinski's version; it's an interesting route that's not often taken by adaptations of the Dracula narrative.

Hah, I actually made those exact same comments about Klaus Kinski's performance earlier in the thread - sort of pathetic and verminous at the same time as threatening and powerful. I agree that Max Schreck is scarier, but really Klaus Kinski's character has way more depth - what I like about it is it makes vampirism seem way less desirable and makes Dracula actually seem like he's damned despite all his power, rather than a vampire being this awesome beautiful superpowered immortal with only the barest lipservice given to any downsides, as is all too frequent in fiction. It actually makes becoming a vampire seem like a genuinely bad thing - yeah you're a superpowered immortal, but you're a hideous rat person who is a slave to this vile urge to drink blood (portrayed in the movie as seriously creepy parasitic thing with sexually perverse overtones, rather than like a sexy, sensual neck-kiss, as is common), while still retaining your human emotional needs - except good luck getting someone to love you when you're an ugly fucker who can't help but drink their blood, haha.

Not to dump on Max Schreck - he has a definite aura about him, helped by the obscuring nature of the silent film, where you could almost believe he's really like that. But just from a dramatic standpoint there's not much to the character, which is also the case in the original Bram Stoker novel. The original Dracula was mostly a symbol of a decadent, parasitic aristocracy/nobility, rather than a serious dramatic character.

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MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

Haha, I didn't see those comments about Kinski. I certainly agree that Kinski and Herzog flesh out the character more than, either, the novel or Murnau's film; in my view, though, while that's an improvement on the dramatic potential of the book, it makes him less creepy to me, as I find things whose internal states I can imagine or attempt to understand less terrifying than things that look humanoid but seem to lack any resemblance to human mentalities. Orlok is an utterly 'other' creature, something with a familiar shape but with a mind that is clearly so different, ancient and warped that it seems there is no way of really communicating with it or understanding it; he's a blank slate in the way that something completely alien would be. That's just my take, of course. I've said it before, but I always find it very interesting to see how differently people react to films.

Well I got around to seeing Skyfall. It's pretty much only good for the intro sequence, which is cool as, then a pretty good start until you actually meet the main villain, after that it gets stupid as hell. You've got a Dark Knight level clusterfuck of "That was all a plan!" bullshit writing, to the point of Silver planning to drop a fucking train on his pursuer at a specific time and a specific, completely out of the way location using a bomb he planted months beforehand. Then you've got the new Q, who is one of the worst character's ever created, he's young, he's hip and he can hack magic, the hacking on here is so bad it seriously shows hacking as a goddamn GUI video game, like that 80's movie. Then you've got the dumbassed conclusion, where the bad guy just goes weird as hell, who despite always wanting to kill M, suddenly has to have some kind of murder suicide gesture despite trying to shoot her right in face 24 hours before, and damn how stupid do the heroes have to be to walk using torches while being within viewing range of the building the bad guys are actively shooting at after escaping the scene safely through a hidden tunnel the bad guys don't even know exists, and just blew up the only entrance too, so they would NEVER know they used it. In fact the whole genesis of the film suddenly sucking is triggered by Bond getting himself captured for no reason at all (and getting his current vagina deadened the process), after he'd snuck onto a boat without detection, and was on his way to the bad guys island where he could have gone completely secretly and not gotten captured as his first plan.

I felt the intro scene was rather average, there was nothing that wowed me. Maybe because I knew how it would unfold because of the trailer. I felt the intentional crashing of the motorcycle was dumb, how he got into that excavator without trying to protect himself, the back and forth between M and that new character got on my nerves. It could have been done better. Yeah, the new Q was goofy but thankfully didn't go full Richard Ayoade, as I expected. I'm gonna go ahead and say there were far to many witty replies and comebacks here, even for a bond film. I had some chuckle head behind me laughing at each and every one for the entire film so halfway through I was done. The similarities to The Dark Knight were present in the middle but not nearly as smart, I got a sense that it may pick up at that point but the third act was predictably dull. That train dropping was far fetched but almost everything up to that point was unbelievable, so much so that I didn't feel like Bond was in any danger. It was your standard high-tec movie hacking affair, how Bond managed to solve it was the part that halted me. It was enjoyable despite the very flimsy plot or lack there of, a weak conclusion and a villain who had potential but resorted to what's been done before. I rate it clearly overrated but it was better than Quantum of Solace. Casino Royale is still my favourite of the modern Bond films, which is a shame because I felt the series was rejuvenated then and ready for something more smart and compelling.

Haha, I didn't see those comments about Kinski. I certainly agree that Kinski and Herzog flesh out the character more than, either, the novel or Murnau's film; in my view, though, while that's an improvement on the dramatic potential of the book, it makes him less creepy to me, as I find things whose internal states I can imagine or attempt to understand less terrifying than things that look humanoid but seem to lack any resemblance to human mentalities. Orlok is an utterly 'other' creature, something with a familiar shape but with a mind that is clearly so different, ancient and warped that it seems there is no way of really communicating with it or understanding it; he's a blank slate in the way that something completely alien would be. That's just my take, of course. I've said it before, but I always find it very interesting to see how differently people react to films.

Well, yes, the creepiness of the Klaus Kinski character comes more from the wretched fate he suffers rather than from mysteriousness or inscrutability - which is why it makes so much sense that in Phantom der Nacht, Harker himself becomes a vampire. It has a much greater impact than just the cliche horror movie twist ending, where the beastie who was thought to be dead escapes to kill again, because we know that, with Lucy dead, Harker is destined for that same wretchedness that Dracula suffered through.

Not that it's up against terribly strong competition, but Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht is definitely my favorite vampire movie.

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MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

As I mentioned above, the ending of the Kinski film is one aspect that I definitely prefer to Murnau's take; it's a far more interesting conclusion, and I am surprised that so few adaptations of the Dracula narrative explore this option. (Hope that didn't spoil the ending for anyone who hasn't seen the Kinski/Herzog film, by the way ).

Edit: somewhat amusingly serendipitous coincidence; upon going back to the other tab I had open, the first thing that appears in my 'newsfeed' is a photo of Kinski. Hehe.

Well fuck you! I was planning on watching it you horrible person that can't understand the function of spoiler tags I've seen two Herzog movies, both of which were super shitty. But seeing all the positive reactions to this film in here, I should really watch it.

Of the few Herzog movies i've seen thus far, Aguirre: Wrath of God was the best. Very haunting little film that just flies by for me. The atmosphere is so thick and dangerous, and I felt like I was right there on the river with those damned fool men. Klaus Kinski's madness is pretty terrifying.

_________________Hush! and harkTo the sorrowful cryOf the wind in the dark.Hush and hark, without murmur or sigh,To shoon that tread the lost aeons:To the sound that bids you to die.

Trolling? I wouldn't say so. Critics loved it, more than the original in fact. I mean, Cage's performance was obviously extreme, but it was understandable considering the character he was portraying - a stressed-out corrupt drug addict cop who gets high on whatever's available. Honestly the things he does are similar to what Harvey Keitel does in the original Bad Lieutenant, except in that movie it's supposed to be horrifying, whereas in this one it's supposed to be horrifying and funny.

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MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

Oh, it WAS enjoyable, don't get me wrong. But it was impossible to take any of it seriously at all, it's just too far out and unbeliavable. It's just Nic Cage going around smoking crack, saying random gibberish, somehow getting away with most of it, and Eva Mendez sucking really hard at acting and as a character (I've spoken about this movie in this thread a while back in more detail.) Then there's fat Val Kilmer who's randomly intense and homicidal for no reason. Then it just sort of ends with Cage asking "I wonder if fish dream." I mean sure, you could argue that it had a point and it was dramatic, but it's hard for me to see it as anything but brilliant, next level trolling. Just like another Herzog movie I saw (my son, my son, what have ye done. Which was even MORE trolly but wasn't actually good.)

Well I have to disagree, I mean it's far out and obviously certain plot points hinge on coincidence (both in Cage's favor and not), but I think it was pretty clear that Cage gets away with the shit he gets away with because most of the police force is corrupt as shit. Remember how surprised he was at that dickhead highway patrol officer who wouldn't help him out? And then how someone helped him out anyway? And how Val Kilmer turned out to be EVEN MORE corrupt? Really that's what I thought elevated the movie to being genuinely good as serious film; sure Cage's character does all this batshit stuff, but at the end of the day he really does have a moral compass and he does actually care about bringing the guy who murdered the African family to justice, even though pretty much nobody else in the whole movie seems to. I'd say as a character that makes him more interesting than Harvey Keitel's bad lieutenant, who is basically just a huge piece of shit and then has a Catholic crisis and makes a self-sacrificial and utterly misguided attempt at redemption right at the end.

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MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

Yeah that is true, no one in the police force really gave two shits about his behavior as he pretty much left a super obvious trail of crime. By the end of the movie, his character is right back where he started. I can't comment on the Keitel version, as I wasn't interested in seeing and, as I uderstand it, the films are only tenuously linked story wise.